


Meltwater

by Megan



Category: Original Work
Genre: M/M, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Minor Injuries, Science Fiction, Temperature Play, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-07
Updated: 2017-02-07
Packaged: 2018-09-22 13:58:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,412
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9610484
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Megan/pseuds/Megan
Summary: A moment of involuntary downtime during the revolution.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [theladyscribe](https://archiveofourown.org/users/theladyscribe/gifts).



Gaius has all but fallen asleep over the console he's ostensibly guarding from an unknown-- or hypothetical-- saboteur when the door slides open with a whisper of hot but moving air. Soft footsteps follow the sound. Is it time for Callum to take over already?

His entire body tenses at the first, unexpected breath of cold on the back of his neck, hair standing up and breath catching in his throat. Then he relaxes, all the tension flowing from his body as he melts in tandem with the ice on his skin.

He can't help the moan that it coaxes from his parched throat as he turns his head and rests his cheek on the floor.

"Where did you get that?" He murmurs, his voice almost inaudible even in the sticky stillness of the control room.

"Someone owed me a favor." Callum's voice is as warm and lazy as the air around them, though his fingers are anything but. He slides the ice down the nape of Gaius' neck and up again, from his hairline to the dip between his shoulder blades. The cold, wet sweep of it keeps Gaius from fully catching his breath. "And I still owe you for that save on the satellite, so I'm passing it on."

Gaius wouldn't even begin to know where to get ice on this decaying hellhole of a station they're regrouping on before their next strike. Does someone still have a working refrigeration unit that they haven't tried to repurpose into an air conditioner? Are shipments from more civilized space still coming in?

"Thank you." His voice sounds strange to his own ears, breathless and yearning. Callum chuckles at the sound of it, leaning down until the heat of his breath tingles against the newly-chilled skin of Gaius' neck.

"Is this all it takes to get you going?" He asks with a murmur of a laugh. Gaius is helpless to do anything but breathe out _yes_. "If only it were that easy to get the environmental control going again."

Right, that problem again. The problem wherein almost everyone thinks Gaius has some prodigious ability at system cracking and the computer engineering skills to go with it. If only a legitimately broken system would accept his access codes in lieu of actual repairs, all of their problems would resolve themselves.

"I don't think the problem here is software." Gaius sighs out the lie with the same conviction he'd used to convince Senators that no, really, he'd been listening to their ceaseless prattle. He has no idea whether the problem is mechanical failure or a software glitch.

"Maria agrees with you. That's why I'm here relieving you of duty-- come on, it's a little cooler over in the industrial block now that the mining machinery is off." Callum makes no move to put distance between them and leave for cooler climes.

Gaius knows full well that Maria doesn't agree with him. He doesn't think she knows who he is, but she must suspect that he's someone privileged enough to override access codes. As long as all he is to her is some slumming rich boy using his parents' clearance to literally open doors, well, things are fine.

He finally opens his eyes. Callum has spent too much time in the industrial block today; the lower radiation shielding there has left his skin red. Why anyone had ever settled those low-radiation colony planets and cursed their distant descendants with an inability to live comfortably outside heavy shielding is beyond him. It's not as if there isn't enough room on the planets with sufficient natural sunlight.

"What are you waiting for, then?" Another thing he can't understand is how Callum hasn't taken that ice and run it over his own burned shoulders. That's a much better use for it than tormenting Gaius.

"Maria and Yue kicked me out of the industrial block. You know how they are, _you're over your radiation dose for the day, go relieve Gaius before he suffocates to death_." Callum does pull away from him then, settling on the chair that Gaius has long since abandoned for the floor.

The ice vanishes into water running down Callum's wrist right before Gaius' eyes. That's too much of a waste even for him-- if only his economics tutors could see how much he's learned about scarcity over the past few months-- and he has to put a stop to it.

He rolls up onto his knees, then rises onto his feet. It's a herculean effort in this swamp of a room.

"Shit, watch that burn." Callum winces when Gaius takes his wrist. "You could ask for it if you want it."

"You should be using this on yourself, not wasting it on me." He draws the ice over a stripe of pinkened skin on Callum's wrist.

Callum ruins the moment by yanking his wrist away.

"Didn't anyone ever teach you not to put ice on a burn?" He all but hisses.

No one has ever taught Gaius anything like that. He can't recall ever having burned himself at all, and even if he had been someone would have healed it before it occurred to him to ice it. Who needs a primitive thing like ice when they have millennia of medical science on their side?

Besides people living on backwater colony worlds months away from all those millennia of medical science, that is.

"No, I'm sorry." Gaius stands there, bewildered and unmoving, until Callum sighs and holds his arm out again.

"You want to drip the water on it, not touch it with the ice." Callum's eyes shutter as Gaius does what he's told, allowing the last sliver of ice to melt. The cold water sluices through the space between his fingers and falls on Callum's arm like rain.

They're both quiet for a moment, the air in the control room heavy in a different and desperately more pleasant way than a moment before. Callum's silvery eyelashes flutter and his adam's apple bobs.

"Thanks," he says when he finally speaks. His voice has gone hoarse, as if his throat is as dry as Gaius' right now.

He strokes his cold fingers over Callum's pulse point, even though he knows that the soft inside of the wrist isn't burned. Callum swallows so hard that it's audible.

"Go before Maria kills both of us. Or the heat in here kills you. I'll be fine; Yue's going to take over my shift in a couple of hours." He starts hitting buttons on the console, probably in some misguided attempt to convince Gaius that he's thinking about the climate regulator and not about whether sex in a sweltering room would be worth the discomfort.

Gaius is all but certain that it would, but he knows a polite dismissal when he hears one. Heavens know he's given enough of them to people he can't afford to offend.

"All right," he accedes. "Don't hit too many of those buttons. You'll turn off the ventilation if you're not careful, and then you'll suffocate." They might all suffocate, if he's enthusiastic enough in his incompetence. "Leave it for Yue. They know more about what they're doing than you do."

"Yeah, yeah, I'm just a guard to make sure it's not sabotage. I hear you loud and clear." Callum takes his hand away from the console and leans back in the chair, the angle hiding his face from Gaius. "How many times do I have to tell you to go?"

Yet another moment ruined. Sometimes Gaius can't decide whether Callum is as clueless and indecisive as he pretends to be at times like this one. He could be every bit as suspicious as the others, but better at hiding it; this could be his idea of trying to catch Gaius in some lie or slip that reveals who he is.

"Fine, I'm going." Either way, he doesn't want to push. If Callum wants to flirt and retreat like that, let him. Even if it's not a test of what happens when Gaius doesn't get what he wants, Callum is well within his rights to be maddening and difficult.

He closes the door behind him and begins mentally writing the excuse he'll give Maria for why the console isn't fixed this time. Then he can concentrate on figuring out who's been handing out ice for favors. It might come in handy in a few hours, once Yue takes over Callum's shift guarding the control room.


End file.
